Security operations and analytics platform architecture (SOAPA)

Security information and event management (SIEM) systems have been around for a dozen years or so. During that timeframe, SIEMs evolved from perimeter security event correlation tools, to GRC platforms, to security analytics systems. Early vendors like eSecurity, GuardedNet, Intellitactics, and NetForensics, are distant memories; today’s SIEM market is now dominated by a few leaders: LogRhythm, McAfee (aka: Nitro Security), HP (aka: ArcSight), IBM (aka: QRadar), and Splunk.

Of course, there is a community of innovative upstarts that believe that SIEM is a legacy technology. They proclaim that log management and event correlation can’t keep up with the pace of cybersecurity today, thus you need new technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning algorithms, and neural networks to consume, process, and analyze security data in real-time.

As an industry analyst, I should be waving my arms around madly, proclaiming that “SIEM is dead,” since that’s what those in my profession tend to do. Sorry, but I don’t think SIEM is dead at all. Instead, enterprise security operations and analytics requirements are forcing rapid consolidation into something new that ESG calls a security operations and analytics platform architecture (SOAPA).

Within SOAPA, SIEM -like functionality still plays a starring role, often aggregating analytics data into a common repository. But unlike the past, SIEM is one of several security tools within SOAPA, and these technologies must be designed for asynchronous cooperation so security analysts can quickly pivot across tools to find data and take action as they need to in real-time.

SOAPA is a dynamic architecture, meaning that new data sources and control planes will be added incrementally overtime. I do believe, however, that today’s SOAPA is built with SIEMs (or similar log management and search products/services) and:

UBA/machine learning algorithms. While these tools have received an inordinate degree of industry hype, there’s little doubt that machine learning will be baked into security analytics henceforth, thus vendors like Bay Dynamics, Caspeda (Splunk), Exabeam, Niara, Sqrrl, and Varonis should be included in SOAPA.

Vulnerability scanners and security asset managers. Part of security operations is knowing which alerts should be prioritized. These decisions must be driven by solid data from vulnerability management systems (i.e., Qualys, Rapid7, Tanium), and other tools that monitor the state of systems and network configurations (i.e., RedSeal, Skybox, Verodin, etc.).

Anti-malware sandboxes. This technology represents another key pivot point for understanding targeted attacks that may use zero-day malware. Sandboxes from FireEye, Fidelis, and Trend Micro are definitely part of SOAPA.

Aside from the technologies themselves, here are a few other thoughts on SOAPA:

Beyond data exchange between security tools, the next big innovation will be central SOAPA command-and-control for analytics and management (i.e., configuration management, policy management, etc.) of the security infrastructure.

The market is already moving in SOAPA’s direction. Witness IBM’s acquisition of Resilient Systems for IRP, Splunk’s purchase of Caspida for UBA, and Elastic Search’s acquisition of Prelert.

Now that McAfee is independent of Intel, look for it to invest in its enterprise security manager (i.e., Nitro). McAfee will also accelerate SOAPA technology integration with its own tools and ecosystem partners, and acquisitions aimed at filling architectural gaps.

Given the central role that SIEM still plays in SOAPA, someone (CA? Palo Alto? Symantec? Trend Micro?) will buy LogRhythm.

Each of the technology elements described above could be delivered on-premises or via SaaS options. SOAPA must be flexible to accommodate these options.

SOAPA must be built for immense scale – especially as organizations increase their use of cloud computing and IoT. It’s likely cloud analytics or storage will become part of the architecture.

A few vendors may be able to deliver their own proprietary SOAPA solutions but enterprise customers will likely eschew single vendor solutions while anchoring their SOAPAs with lead vendors and ecosystem partners. Small enterprises and SMBs could buy from a single product or SaaS vendor however.